There´s a prevailing snow breeze outside my window. Ravens sail on the strong up winds. During two nights a local storm wind called saqqarsarneq, which means the sunny side, has plagued life here in the settlement. All our windows are covered by wooden shutters when there´s no people in the house, which it hasn´t for quite some time, at least during winter, but these are making such a noise all the time, so it is hard to sleep. That is how strong the wind is. However, locals says it is a breeze compared to the winter version. I am on my way down to the center and the local shop to be nails and nail the shutters to the wall until we leave. This breeze have been good for us and the house, to see how we both fare. It is damn called, especially the floors when the wind is on, we all have sore throats and according to DMI (the Danish Meteorological institute), the real temperature, wind take in account, -9 Celsius. There´s no doubt the winter will be tough, but we are ready. Both we and the house!

”Have you heard a big hale have been harpooned? I can take you there” , Anda explained over the phone: “Everyone is there getting a chunk of the meat because there´s such a big whale. It was harpooned by hunters from Pamiut from a big boat, we don´t have in the village. And they can´t take care of all the meat themselves before it goes bad, so they have invited us to share it and take what we need.”

Naturally I said yes to his offer. When Pam got off work, all of us got on Anda´s boat and travelled past some of the most stunning of icebergs before reaching the place of the whale. I didn´t really know what to expect, but I have been very close to southern right whales along the Patagonian coast where I fell in love with them and I had read that when a big whale is killed in Inuit territory in Canada and Greenland, it is shared among locals. Meat and food that will last for many months and makes life much easier in these isolated communities. And since we belong to one ourselves now, we saw the giant carcass of the whale and all the meat, as both exhilarating but also as food for the winter survival. I really hoped it was true, this sharing.

Suddenly the carcass of the whale in front of us. It was huge. It was split in three parts and came across as a giant butchers shop. There were a few locals there, getting their share, and Anda, one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever come across, cut out about 20 KG.s of meat for us immediately. Good meat, just next to the head, so almost fat free. Dana started to eat her favorite food immediately, mattak, the fattest part found just below the skin. The place in itself was an old place where the slaughter of whales had been for a long time, permanent winches and steel cables interspersed with giant whale skulls and when I asked Anda what kind of a whale this giant was, he answered in Greenlandic:

”Tikaagulliusaaq.”

I saw the baleen, so i realized it was most likely a finwhale, which it turns out it was, and I knew they were the second biggest whales on earth after their relative, the blue whale, and that they could reach 20 meteres and more in size and weighed 70 tonnes. On top of that, I also knew they belonged to the endangered species on earth, which are threatened with extinction. However, according to the International Whaling Comission, IWC, the West Greenlandic population is still healthy.

”The heart is already gone. It weighs 150 kg and tastes better than anything” , Anda claimed and cut off some more stripes of mattak for Dana to have during winter.

I already know I will receive emails and negative comments as regards to the killing of these amazing whales, even if reality here is a case of survival and part of the hunting culture of Inuits and Greenlanders. Please, do see the documentary Angry Inuk for perspective on this issue and how wrong well-being Westerners does cause aboriginal people. The reality is, right here were we are, the killing of a fin whale means food for months ahead and surviving winter much better than without it. We are very happy over having received this meat. But there´s no doubt, the fin whale, even if it was only a third of it left, it came across as beautiful and massive and it is one of the fastest, which saved it for hundreds of years until technology caught up and today it is endangered due to the Japanese. The Greenlanders are allotted a quota each year by the IWC, see this and this, (the official Greenlandic version) and as regards to fin whales the quota is 14 a year, but if reports surfaces that there´s an injured fin whale around, it is seen as protective hunting and therefore is not included in the quota. And, when the hunters spot fin whales, they have first to ask the government for permission to kill and hunt.

What about the reactions of the girls? Well, they have seen a lot of stuff throughout their short years, but the whale impressed them immensely. They didn´t feel any sorrow over the fact it had been killed and butchered, but saw it all with excitement and happiness both over the experience and the food. Obviously we parents and our opinions make a difference. And obviously we are for protecting the flora and fauna of our globe, including homo sapiens sapiens! For me, who have spent most of my life living in the countryside and back of beyond, preserving this way of life is extremely important. We can´t just have big cities and people living in them. If this happens, which might happen sooner than later in Greenland, we will forget who we ones were. We human beings.